What’s in a name?
A lot, according to Mayor Michael Bloomberg — especially when talking about the nation’s most sacred site.
Bloomberg said yesterday that New Yorkers should stop saying “Ground Zero,” saying the site had changed from a dusty, stalled construction zone to a memorial now sporting the tallest tower in Lower Manhattan, and when completed, the tallest in New York.
“We will never forget the devastation of the area that came to be known as Ground Zero, never,” Bloomberg said at a speech on Wall Street yesterday. “But now the time has come for us to call those 16 acres what they are — the World Trade Center and the September 11th Memorial and Museum.”
Others agree.
“In the years right after, almost everyone called it Ground Zero,” said Julie Menin, chair of Community Board 1 downtown. “But now that we’re days away from opening this, it’s so important that we know the site now as the place of the final memorial.”
Meanwhile, construction workers building the site are still getting used to the tower’s name — changed to “One World Trade Center” from “Freedom Tower” in 2009.
Port Authority director Chris Ward said last week that the name “Freedom Tower” will likely recall painful memories of the 9/11 attacks.
